The DEC recently released its proposed ten-year management plan for the Mute Swan in New York state. This outline for management seeks complete and total decimation of the species by the year 2025.

One of the reasons the agency gives for this policy proposal is the Mute Swans “exhibiting aggressive behavior towards people.” Swan attacks resulting in serious injury to humans are so rare and near physically impossible that the government insults the public's intelligence by presenting this as a major justification for extermination. If you approach a swan nest they might get aggressive and hiss and flap their wings to protect their young, or approach if you have food, but this is a greatly exaggerated threat. the DEC is using to try and spin public opinion against swans, and wildlife in general.

The agency gives further justification for eradication by stating that the “mute swan is a non-native, invasive species brought to North America from Eurasia for ornamental purposes in the late 1800s.” According to the NYSDEC, the state’s population of Mute Swans peaked at more than 2,800 birds in 2002 and is currently estimated at about 2,200 swans statewide, at a relatively stable population. By way of comparison, the DEC states that in Long Island alone there are tens of thousands of wintering waterfowl. Of course, millions of human beings live in New York and our impact on the environment dwarfs the harm that wildlife may cause.

What does it say about our "environmental conservation" priorities when we know that the highest threats to water quality comes from human activities such as agriculture, extraction, and industrial practices, but the DEC chooses to target wildlife?

I have been fooled many times by birders/photographers playing birdsongs on their smartphones in Central Park. I imagine, for those who bird by ear, this can be frustrating. National Geographic's Mel White explores both sides of the subject in this article on the National Geographic Web site. You can express your opinion on the subject in our forums.

Last April I was leading a group of beginning birders along a trail beside the Arkansas River, helping them learn to spot and identify some of the dozens of species present on this beautiful spring morning. At one point I heard a distinctive song coming from a thicket: the wichity-wichity-wichity of a male common yellowthroat.

Now, common yellowthroats are indeed common where I live, not to say abundant—but that doesn't mean they're easy to see. These little wood-warblers prefer to stay hidden in dense vegetation, and if they perch within view it's usually for only a couple of seconds before disappearing again.

I pulled out my mobile phone, told the group to gather around, and played a recording of the common yellowthroat song from a bird-watching application I'd downloaded. The male almost immediately hopped up to the limb of a shrub and posed for us, to the accompaniment of oohs and aahs from viewers admiring its bright-yellow breast and black "bandit" mask. Most of the people in the group had never seen a common yellowthroat before, and in fact didn't even know the species existed.

NYNYBIRD is a text alert system for disseminating unusual bird sightings in New York County (Manhattan).

Birds reportable to NYNYBIRD should simply include any wild bird species that are unusual in Manhattan. The purpose of NYNYBIRD is to alert birders so that anyone interested in seeing an unusual bird can get the information as soon as possible. As it is unlikely that most observers have a list of New York County bird records memorized, good judgment is requested.

New York Times

A patient at the Wild Bird Fund Center, this wild turkey from Staten Island has a splint on his broken leg. He will spend Thanksgiving eating, not being eaten.

“He didn’t mean to hurt it; he just didn’t see it sitting there,” a little girl said. It was late September on a ball field in Riverdale in the Bronx at my daughter’s lacrosse practice. I winced, picturing the bug or frog that the girl’s brother had squished.

Instead, the girl’s father walked up carrying something in his outstretched brown baseball cap: a stunned ruby-throated hummingbird, a long-beaked iridescent thing of unbearable beauty.